Brookshire 1 Meredith Brookshire Professor Riddle English 112 8 February 2022 The Borders That Arose from the Mason Dixon Line The forming of the Mason Dixon line started an extended list of issues between states as they shifted their political borders to symbolic borders as well. The states were divided into two groups: one wanting slavery and the other wanting freedom. The line separates the two as Pennsylvania became a free state and the states below the line were slave states. It also created a border, that is still used today, to divide the North from the South. The significance of the Mason Dixon line has morphed from the initial socio- political boundary in the 1700s to a more symbolical meaning of segregation between free and slave in the 1800s. In 1632 King Charles I gave Maryland to Cecilius Calvert and in 1681 King Charles II gave William Penn Pennsylvania. The boundaries that were given to them were precise everywhere except the northern border of Maryland and the southern border of Pennsylvania.An expert on the Mason-Dixon project states,“There was about 4,000 sq miles of territory that was in dispute and nobody knew who to pay taxes to. Warfare regularly broke out along the border,” (Thaler). Both men wanted to claim the land because of the historical landmark in it, which was Philadelphia. After not being able to reach an agreement, the Conojocular War broke out in the 1730s and militia from both sides got involved after that. King George II created a truce between
